Gavin Mortimer

Here are some statistics that ought to send a shudder through Tory MPs. Between 1995 and 2012 the French centre-right was in presidential power, first under Jacques Chirac and then the administration of Nicolas Sarkozy. The month after Sarko was elected president in 2007, his party, Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), won 313 seats in the National Assembly. Today, following a rebrand to become Les Républicans in 2015, they have 62. This is actually better than some expected considering their 2022 presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, won just 4.8 per cent of the electorate’s votes, below the 5 per cent threshold required for candidates to be reimbursed their campaign expenses.

You can’t blame Boris Johnson for jetting off to Kyiv last week for another meet-and-greet session with Volodymyr Zelensky. He got a warmer reception from the Ukrainian President than he would have in Doncaster, the town he snubbed in order to grandstand on the international stage. Johnson was scheduled to have made an appearance at the conference of northern Conservatives, where organisers had hoped he would woo Red Wall voters by explaining how, two and a half years after they loaned him their vote, he intends to ‘level up’ their town. But to the consternation of many MPs, Johnson decided he had more important issues on the other side of Europe with his ‘great friend’ Zelensky.

‘Stillborn’ is how Le Figaro describes Emmanuel Macron’s presidency after his Renaissance party failed to win an absolute majority in the National Assembly. On a wretched day for Macron, his coalition party won 245 seats in the lower house, dozens short of the number needed to secure the majority that would have allowed him to push through his reforms in his second term. Jean-Luc Melenchon’s left-wing NUPEs took 131 seats. But the biggest surprise of the night was the success of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. They won 89 seats, a result beyond the wildest dreams of Le Pen, whose party had only eight MPs in the last parliament.

He may not have much respect for the ‘Clown’, but when it comes to the Queen Emmanuel Macron is as smitten as his compatriots. With political relations between France and Britain at their coldest for decades, and Macron reportedly regarding Prime Minister Boris Johnson as more suitable for the circus, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has provided the French president with an opportunity to warm up his rhetoric. In a video address to Her Majesty published on Thursday, Macron praised the constancy of the Queen’s Francophilia throughout her 70 years on the throne. ‘Times have changed, Europe has evolved, our continent is again experiencing war,’ said Macron.

Tony Blair believes the way forward for Britain is to seek guidance from Emmanuel Macron. The former British prime minister has a reputation for outlandish claims but the suggestion that the United Kingdom can benefit from pearls of wisdom proffered by the most divisive president in the history of the Fifth Republic is baffling even by Blair’s standards. According to Politico, Blair will host a Future of Britain conference on June 30, which is a collaboration between his eponymous Institute and the Britain Project, a centrist think tank that was established in the wake of the 2019 general election and which is described by Politico as the ‘British version of Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche’.

Emmanuel Macron has taken it upon himself to tackle the delicate diplomatic situation of the war in Ukraine with fresh vigour following his victory last month. This week he addressed the EU parliament on the question of the future of Europe. France has the rotating presidency of the EU Council until June 30 and Macron therefore is the de facto head of the 27 member nations, a role for which his gargantuan ego is well suited. The main takeaway from Macron’s address was the question of Ukraine’s application to join the EU. They began the process in February, days after Russia invaded, but any hope that president Volodymyr Zelensky had of his country being fast-tracked was quashed by Macron.

In Britain it was the Tories who tore themselves apart over Europe, but in France it is the left for whom Brussels has long been a battleground. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the de facto leader of the French left following his impressive performance in last month’s presidential election, is an unabashed Eurosceptic, as are most in his La France Insoumise (LFI). The Socialist Party, on the other hand, share Emmanuel Macron’s view that Europe is the future and if France must sacrifice some of its sovereignty in the pursuit of closer integration then so be it.

In a few hours France will know who has won the presidential election. Macron, predict the polls – though Marine Le Pen’s National Rally remain convinced that the ‘voice of the street’ will sweep them to power. The truth, however, is that there will be no winner from this election. Macron told Le Pen during Wednesday’s live television debate that her wish to ban the headscarf would precipitate a ‘civil war’, but France is already at war with itself. Macron vs Le Pen is how it has manifested itself this month but the battle lines were first drawn a decade or more ago as the effects of globalisation began to bite in what is called la France Périphérique.